(NAPSA)—Agrowing number of consumersare taking more control of—and getting more out of— their telephone system. That’s because a trio of services offered by a major communications company is helping subscribers manage communications, giving them more control, more privacy and moretime. Caller ID is perhaps the service consumers are most familiar with. A device with a digital screen is attached to the consumer’s phone line. The service allows consumers to eliminate surprises or unwanted conversations, since they get to see the phone numberof the caller before they pick up the phone. Call Intercept, working in conjunction with Caller ID, is a silent watchdog, enhancing a subseriber’s privacy while offering greater control over which calls to accept and which onesto reject or handle at a later time. Theservice does that by intercepting unidentified, unwanted calls. It’s estimated that since January 2002, Call Intercept has kept customers’ phones from ringing more than 535 million times. In addition to call screening and blocking capabilities, the Call Intercept feature can even intercept calls from telemarketers and send them a message, asking them to put the subscriber’s phone number on their do-not-call list. A third service—Voice Mail— performs several different functions that can add value, convenience and flexibility to a customer’s phoneservice. Home Voice Mail makes it possible to access messages at any time, whether at home or away from home. Subscribers won’t miss calls and callers won’t get busy signals. Subscribers don’t have to worry about garbled messages or damaged tapes. That’s because Verizon owns and operates the voicemail equipment. Evenif there is a power outage at the customer’s home, messages remain secure since Verizon maintains backup generatorsat all of its switchingoffices. Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services, with $67 billion in annual revenues. To learn more, visit the Web site at www.verizon.com.
